Captivate Me
by dancer-me
Summary: Sakura is captured and held at an enemy base after a recon mission gone wrong. With her entire team slaughtered, she wonders why she's been spared – is it because her captors have heard of the pink haired kunoichi who has captured the Hokage's heart?
1. Part I

**(AN) Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. **

**-Warning – there is mention of violence and original character death in this chapter.**

**_large bodies of text like __this are memories of past events_****. **

**Please R&R!**

* * *

><p><strong>Drip.<strong>

**Drip.**

**Drip. Drip. Drip.**

Sakura ground her teeth together as the incessant dripping continued, not even having the decency to fall in a relatively rhythmic fashion, let alone consistently.

**Drip. Drip.**

No wonder this was a form of torture.

...

...

...

**Drip.**

She suspected, however, that this was an unexpected, unintentional torturous bonus her captors had not planned.

Shifting in her chair, Sakura didn't make a sound as the chakra laced rope that bound her hands behind her back chafed against the raw skin on her wrists. She would not give off any signs of discomfort, even while she was alone in the room.

Squinting against the darkness, Sakura looked about her prison. She didn't expect to see any glorious opportunities for escape, but a cursory glance was necessary. It was a relatively small chamber; with grimy grey brick walls covered in splatters of – unfortunately, that probably _was _blood and not just the result of an irritated interior designer being fed up with their employer or that particular shade of red.

There was a single door. A single entrance and exit; wood but sturdy. The other side of the barrier was probably supported by larger plank of wood that crossed over the entrance and locked the door in place. Maybe even several metal bolts were used.

The stone ground was wet, covered in a thin sheet of dirty water that managed to make the awful smell of the room permeate quite effectively. She didn't want to guess at what was mixed with the water to create such a smell – it wasn't relevant, unless she either got desperate enough to consider trying to drink it or bored enough to enjoy that kind of guessing game.

The later was out of the question, unfortunately, since her captors didn't enjoy giving her many moments of peace, and she used the few reprieves she was given to escape into her mind and try to get a grasp of the situation – try to hold on to her sanity.

**Drip.**

Her team had been ambushed. That was a cold, hard fact she was still struggling to come to terms with. Ambushed, and slaughtered. Jin, Aiko, Isamu... all jounins and all murdered in cold blood. They were all skilled at their craft, but the missing-nins who had assaulted them... Her team of five had been outnumbered and overpowered. Akane, the fifth member of her team and her second in command... Sakura didn't know what had happened to her.

The violet-eyed brunette had taken a kunai to the chest and had been bleeding profusely. Sakura had managed to slit the throat of her attacker and had been rushing to Akane's aid when she had been grabbed herself. Sakura had struggled violently to free herself and save her only teammate left standing, but she had soon realized that she'd been administered some sort of drug when her world started to blur and fade.

Had Akane managed to escape? Sakura could only hope.

At the same time, the thought of the blood thirsty nin who had attacked them leaving one of the Konoha shinobi left standing seemed absurd.

But so did taking a prisoner after that kind of an attack.

**Drip**_**.**_

What did that mean?

A cold chill washed over Sakura, and she knew it had little to do with the general dankness of her cell or the coldness in her bones from blood loss.

The whole situation reeked of a set-up. That many skilled missing-nin didn't just trip over a reconnaissance party and decide to murder everyone in their path, rounding up their pink-haired leader and depositing her into a rancid cell simply because they felt like it.

Murder them all, maybe. Some nin left their villages because there wasn't enough bloodshed in their job description. But to take a prisoner? That pushed the boundaries of a simple knee jerk reaction and warranted some serious thought.

**Drip**.

Sakura shook her head violently, her pink ponytail falling over her shoulder as she leaned her head forward, clamping her eyes shut and trying and failing to divert her attention from the single droplet of blood that was trickling, painfully slowly, down the side of her face.

How had her team been set-up? _Why_ had they been set-up?

Their mission had been a simple one, and taking a team of five had almost seemed excessive. Now, a five man team just seemed wasteful. Images of her deceased teammates' bloodied and mangled bodies were burned into her mind. They were the last thing she had seen before her world went black.

A scroll. All this pain, blood and death over a single scroll. Her mission, handed to her by the Hokage, had been to retrieve a scroll containing information pertaining to the truce between Konoha and Kiri.

"_We're picking up their mail?"_ _Jin asked incredulously, slouching against the doorway to the Hokage's office._

_Sakura cast a warning glance at the nin she'd chosen as her third for this mission on Naruto's request. Why he felt she needed so many shinobi to travel with her was definitely going to be a topic of discussion after the meeting was adjourned. _

_Jin merely raised an eyebrow at her and tilted his head to look questioning at Naruto as the blond leaned back in his chair behind his desk, tossing a rolled scroll back and forth between his hands. _

"_Nah, it's not like that," Naruto corrected as he sat up more fully in his chair and dropped the scroll on the desk, "the Mizukage sent a courier with the scroll through the mountains to deliver it to us. Apparently the nin didn't make it through the pass. They have reason to believe a group of bandits have taken up residence there and killed the guy, stealing the scroll thinking it was something top secret."_

"_So as a show of good faith, Konoha sends shinobi to retrieve the scroll and dispatch the bandits," Sakura mused as she touched a finger to her chin, "since Kirigakure already lost a nin trying to deliver the scroll."_

_Naruto smiled up at Sakura as he leaned his arms onto his desk, nodding. _

"_Yeah, that's the idea." _

"_Why only send one ninja through the pass if they suspected bandits were holed up there?" Akane spoke up from her perch by the window, spinning a kunai around by a finger through the looped end. She was Sakura's second and a good friend. Young and beautiful with her short auburn hair and striking violet eyes, Akane's appearance was deceiving. She was a powerful shinobi, blessed with speed, agility and deadly accuracy._

"_I guess _now _they suspect there are bandits there and weren't too worried before," Naruto shrugged._

"_Still," Jin voiced his opinion once more, "I guess the info on that scroll wasn't important enough to warrant more than a single guard. Why not just write up a new one and send more shinobi this time?"_

_Sakura had to admit that thought had crossed her mind, if only for a tiny moment, when she'd first heard the briefing about this mission. _

"_Because it's better not to have multiple copies of documents like that floating around. They underestimated the bandit presence, and now we're going to go finish the job." Sakura answered, looking to Naruto to see if he was going to correct her assumption._

_Naruto nodded and flashed a huge grin. "Yup, that's the plan!"_

_The blond made a face as if a thought had suddenly come to him and began rummaging through the piles of papers on his desk, looking for something._

"_Aha!" he cheered, holding a small sheet of paper in hand. His blue eyes quickly scanned the page. "The Mizukage admits that the courier they sent was an inexperienced chuunin, so an average group of bandits – five or ten against one, maybe? – could probably have taken him down. Especially if they had the element of surprise in the pass."_

_Sakura nodded, accepting the mission scroll Naruto was reaching forward to place in her hand. As her eyes scanned the page, Naruto added, "It shouldn't take too long to get out there, get the job done and retrieve the scroll. Three or four days tops."_

_Sakura cast Naruto a pointed look as she lifted her eyes from the scroll before turning to focus on Akane. _

"_Hokage-sama wants this to be a five man team. Akane and Jin, you'll be my second and third respectively. Akane, go find me Isamu-san and Aiko-san and let them know I want them on my team. We'll meet at the gate at dawn."_

_With a curt nod and a wave, Akane left the Hokage's office in search of Sakura's chosen teammates. Jin quietly slipped out of the room, aware that his presence was no longer required._

**Drip.**

Sakura's team choice had been fantastic. No one would fault her on that or blame their mission failure on the Konoha shinobi in question.

Jin, despite his cocky demeanour, was an incredibly skilled team player and constantly looked out for their safety. He was a proficient swordsman and knew many jutsus, using his abilities to get their team out of any tight spots.

Isamu was a man of the shadows, a huge fan of the old cloak and dagger approach. He thrived in the darkness and made no sound with either his movements or his actions. If Sakura ever needed something difficult done fast and quietly, Isamu had been her man.

Aiko knew a deadly arsenal of jutsus from her time spent travelling. No matter what element Sakura's team ended up against, Aiko would know a way to counter it or develop an incredibly effective strategy.

**Drip.**

And now they were all dead.

They were all dead, they had failed their mission, and Sakura was being held prisoner by the band of sadistic nin who had slaughtered her friends and teammates.

This mission was supposed to have been relatively easy. A B-rank at best. The concept had been a simple one. Take a team of five well-trained shinobi, travel to the mountain pass, neutralize the bandits, retrieve the scroll, and be back at home before nightfall on the fourth day.

Sakura had suspected her assignment to such a short mission was contrived by Naruto and had stuck around his office to make her own inquiries.

_The door clicked shut behind Jin, and Sakura turned to look at Naruto as he came out from around his desk and perched on the edge of the wooden top. _

"_Want to explain this to me?" Sakura questioned the blond, a hand on her hip and the other gesturing with the mission scroll. "This should be short and sweet. Why do I need a five man team and why _is_ it so short? Uzumaki Naruto, if you're doing this to me on purpose –"_

"_H-Hey, S_aaaa_kura!" Naruto whined softly as he waved his hands in front of him, trying to quell her obviously rising temper._

_She softened her glare at him but still quietly waited for him to answer her and justify his mission decision._

"_I don't know how many bandits there actually are, so I want you to go with a team of five to be safe and no, Sakura-chan, don't look at me like that. I'm not babying you or doubting your abilities – we were a team, remember?" Naruto rubbed the back of his head and shot her a pleading look, "I just don't like the lack of details about this mission. I want to stay on the safe side, y'know?"_

_Sakura sighed and placed the mission scroll temporarily down on his desk. _

"_The safe side for the team."_

"_Yes, for the team."_

_Smiling sweetly, Sakura stepped closer and pinched his cheek between her forefinger and her thumb. "Okay, Naruto. I believe you."_

_Naruto gave her a relieved smile, even as he followed it up by puffing out his cheeks childishly and trying to narrow his eyes on her abusing fingers. Even as the Hokage and with the responsibility of the village, Naruto still managed to maintain his playful self. The thought warmed Sakura's heart. _

"_And the length of the mission...?" She prompted as she stepped closer to him. Naruto stiffened somewhat and seemed to forget about her pinching fingers as she closed in on him._

"_Well, the job really shouldn't take all that long," He answered seriously, trying and failing to suppress the grin making its way onto his face. "And you'd be a great team leader for it considering your experience with retrieval missions-"_

"_Naruto..." She growled threateningly, although the effect was ruined somewhat by the strong hint of playfulness in her voice. _

"_It's a win-win situation!" Naruto protested loudly, "You get a mission, and I –"_

"_Get me back in your bed in a few days time?" Sakura supplied helpfully. _

"_I was going to say don't have to live without you for longer than I can bare," Naruto grumbled as she released his cheek from her hold, "I'm not that lecherous!" _

"_But you still want us to leave tomorrow morning so you can have tonight with me." Sakura said as she stepped between his legs and wrapped her arms around his neck._

"_Please?" Naruto smiled at her, his blue eyes alight. He placed his hands on her hips and pulled her closer. _

"_Of course," Sakura assured him as she leaned her forehead against his, "You know I wouldn't leave for a mission without properly kissing you goodbye," Sakura teased as she slanted her head._

"_It's still polite to ask..." Naruto trailed off as he leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers. Sakura smiled against his soft lips as she moved hers against his, sucking his bottom lip into her mouth. Teenaged Naruto had never been one to do things simply because it was polite. Perhaps this was the Hokage talking with a mixture of sweet desperation that she'd leave without his touch just to spite him. _

_As Naruto slipped his tongue into her mouth and ran a hand up the small of her back, Sakura moaned into his mouth and wondered why he would ever think she could stay away. _

**Drip. Drip.**

Since the ambush, Sakura had lost track of time.

It had been midday on the second day and her team had been making plans to scout the mountain area under the cover of night and get a feel for how many bandits there were and their positions. Check to see if they followed rotation patterns or simply were holed up in camp, patting each other on the back over a job well done.

But Akane had come to Sakura with a bad feeling, a tingling sensation that they were being followed that the brunette beauty hadn't wanted to ignore. Sakura had been hoping it had only been her own imagination that had given her similar premonitions and had been slightly dismayed by Akane's concerns.

Sakura shifted in her chair, trying to ease the discomfort of the pounding knot of muscles in her left shoulder blade as best she could. The movement only seemed to worsen the pain and Sakura grit her teeth once more, sucking in deep breaths through her teeth as she resigned herself to waiting it out.

Sakura had barely had enough time to warn her teammates about the impending attack before a barrage of kunai and shuriken had erupted from the forestry around them. Weapons and tactics that average bandits didn't use.

They had been a band of missing-nin, jounin level, Sakura had determined from the skills her attackers had displayed. Over a dozen of them, bursting out of the tree line and engaging in a tight and practiced formation.

The team of Konoha nin hadn't stood a chance against their numbers, but still they had fought hard until three had fallen, Sakura was taken and Akane... Sakura could only wonder.

At the metallic taste in her mouth, Sakura leaned over her chair and coughed over the water, watching as the blood fell from her mouth and melded with the water underfoot. Leaning back, Sakura tilted her head towards the roof of her prison.

She had no idea where she was or how long she had been here. There was no window, and so she could not gauge the flow of time through the rising and falling of the sun. What she did know was that there were much more than a dozen nin roaming the base where she was being held.

**Drip**.

She knew that no bandits had taken that scroll; only these nin with an ulterior motive beyond obstructing the flow of information between Kiri and Konoha.

**Drip.**

She knew they had a reason for killing all her comrades but sparing her life alone by taking her prisoner. Sakura would be a fool if she thought they wanted nothing more than a ragdoll to torture and prod and gain sick satisfaction from hearing her scream and seeing her bleed. That, she thought, was just a bonus.

Somehow, someway, her team had been set-up, and Sakura had led them right into their trap.

**Drip. Drip. **

Sakura glanced around the room once more, morbid curiosity driving her to try and find where the water was coming into her cell. Exerting the effort was stupid, she knew, especially since knowing the location of the leak would only irk her as she'd have no way to stop it. She'd just suffer the knowledge and find herself staring at it and willing it to dry up.

Sighing, Sakura focused her eyes on her lap. Her skirt was torn and bloodied. Her own blood.

She had cuts all over her body, a combination of the battle wherein she had taken down four of the attacking nin, but also the vicious wake-up and welcome she'd received from her captors as recompense for their fallen teammates.

Who knew missing-nin cared so much? Sakura thought mirthlessly.

They cared enough about their goal to keep her alive. They hurt her in places they knew would not kill her. The knowledge of that was incredibly disconcerting. Sakura tried to not find herself wondering if she would live, but rather how soon until she would be allowed to die.

She would not think that way.

These shinobi had a plan, and she needed to figure it out.

Sakura didn't waste a minute in wondering if Konoha had had a hand in the set-up.

Naruto would never do that to his village. Her teammates. Her.

Never.

The missing-nin must have known a team would come to retrieve the stolen scroll; that much was obvious.

Had they simply wanted a hostage, or had they wanted her specifically? Sakura closed her eyes and tried to force back the wave of nausea that struck her. The feeling had been on and off since she had woken. Whether it was a side-effect of the drug or her own body's reaction to her bad physical state she didn't know.

If they had wanted a hostage, why didn't they capture the original courier? Had the chuunin not been enough leverage for what they wanted? She suspected that was the case. Most villages conveniently forgot about the existence of captured shinobi. They became only liabilities because of the information they may reveal.

What information did she have to reveal?

The little voice in the back of her head was chirping that she had a goldmine of information on Konoha.

On the Hokage.

Sakura clenched her fists together vehemently. She would tell them nothing. She would die before she betrayed her village. Anyone who knew her clearly knew this.

Sakura's jade eyes shot open.

Did these shinobi know her? Know _of_ her? Had they heard the rumours of the pink-haired kunoichi who had captured the Hokage's heart? Sakura felt ill all over again.

Naruto had expressed concern that this could happen. She had told him that it was an occupational hazard, and that she would not give up him or being a kunoichi, even though she knew he would never have asked for the later.

They had had fights over time over his hesitancy to send her out on difficult missions in enemy countries. She had always assured him that she could take care of herself, and she always had, returning safely back to Konoha and back into his arms.

But not this time.

Not this time on a mission that was so close to home that the irony burned worse than the jagged soreness of her throat.

The large wooden door to her cell creaked open, followed by the small splashes of water as a pair of boots trudged across the wet floor. Sakura looked up and stared the man straight in the eyes.

This was the sadistic one. She would always remember him.

"Awake, beautiful?" He cooed as he stopped just short of her chair, reaching out a gloved hand to grasp her chin and forcefully turn her chin from side to side, examining the trails of blood down her temples from the gash in her hairline.

Sakura said nothing. The sadistic man picked up on her deliberate silence and chuckled, the deep sound, low and eerie, echoing around her dank prison.

"Ain't got no rush for you to speak, Pinky." He said in a disturbingly jovial manor as he crouched down in front of her, slipping a kunai out of his sleeve and using it to pick the grime out from under his fingernails, his fingers left exposed by the fingerless fabric of his gloves.

Sakura swore to herself she would not flinch. She would not budge.

"It's only a matter a' time before what we want comes to us," He spoke in a friendly, conversational manner as he trailed the kunai up and down her exposed legs, lightly so as not to break the skin. Sakura did her best to breath normally.

He quirked a thick eyebrow at her silent form.

"You ain't curious? Not e'en just a little?" He gave her a disappointed look, "You certainly ain't one for conversation. I ain't see'in what he sees in you, other than that pretty lil' body o' yours," He grinned at her then, several of his teeth blackened.

"Then again, maybe your silence is a virtue," Standing back up to his full height, the sadistic man began to circle her chair, twirling the kunai around his finger much the same way Akane had done when she thought. "and you're a fighter," he shrugged his shoulders and mumbled, "attractive quality, that."

Sakura's stomach was in knots.

"I like bein' a lucky man," he spoke as he stopped behind her chair, exactly where he knew she couldn't see him at all in her peripheral vision, "an' I can tell you I am a lucky man." He leaned his head down next to hers and whispered in her ear.

"We took a gamble in hopin' your Kage would send you with his team to retrieve that scroll," he told her quietly, his breath tickling her throat and drowning her in disgust, "and we won, 'cause I'm a lucky man."

Sakura felt as if a hundred bricks were being piled upon her chest. Her; they had specifically wanted her. They'd killed her teammates so they could take _her_. They had gambled on her presence and won. She couldn't force herself to remain silent any longer.

"What is it," her voice cracked with the dryness and soreness of a throat that had not spoken a word in days but had been abused by involuntary screams, "that you hope to receive from this?"

"Ah! So she speaks!" He cheered, still not coming out from behind her as she had hoped he would, "What a pretty voice. More's the pity, since we'll be gettin' rid of you once he comes to rescue you."

Sakura visibly tensed at the mention of Naruto; she knew for sure he was talking about him.

"I got no doubt he'll be comin' our way shortly," the nin behind her volunteered helpfully, "we got his cherry blossom and I'm bettin' that don't sit well with him."

Oh no, _no no_.

He came back around her chair then, resuming his crouched position in front of her.

"What better way to break a Kage than to kill his woman right in front of his eyes?"

Try as she might, Sakura couldn't hide all the horror in her eyes. Naruto... she didn't know if he could survive witnessing that.

The man forcefully slapped a hand to her thigh as he stood up. "We got lots of uses for a broken Kage. But if killin' you don't do the trick, we can just kill 'im, too." He pouted slightly as he nicked the kunai across her thigh, drawing blood. "Less fun, but really, just as effective in the long run."

And with that, the pain loving man turned on his heels with a swoosh of water and headed out the door, slamming it shut behind him, leaving Sakura alone once more.

**Drip**.

Sakura refused to cry; she would not suffer the tell-tale water marks on her bloody and grimy face that would reveal her weakness.

She willed herself to calm down, to take deep, even breaths.

They seemed to think Naruto knew where she was; that he would come for her.

She wasn't so sure.

Naruto was the Hokage and took his responsibility to the village very seriously. Sending a team to rescue her would be a courtesy not paid to every ninja who was captured on a mission.

Still, Sakura knew that if Naruto knew she was alive and held prisoner, he wouldn't hesitate to dispatch a team of Konoha's best.

Being a member of the team himself would be irresponsible. It would endanger the village if something were to happen to him. He could not come.

He should not come.

And yet Sakura knew, deep in her heart, that he wouldn't be able to not come.

As soon as he knew something had happened to her and her team, Naruto was going to assemble a team and head out to find her.

Sakura hung her head as the nausea returned with a powerful force.

He would be ambushed, just as she had, and the band of missing-nin would kill Konoha's elite, take Naruto prisoner, and murder her in front of his beautiful blue eyes.

There was no way Naruto could know how many nin there were; how skilled they were. He would inevitably be taken by surprise.

And he would eventually die, because of her.

Sakura willed herself to remember the feeling of his hands as he lovingly touched her skin. She brought to the forefront of her mind the way his soft lips had felt as they kissed down her neck, his fingers playing with her hair.

She tried to escape her cell by remembering the sound of his voice as he whispered how much he loved her in her ear. As he kissed her lips and told her to be safe and come home to him soon.

She was being pessimistic, she knew, but still she desperately tried to escape into her thoughts of making love with Naruto; to let her memories of their moments shared together since the days of Team Seven captivate her mind.

**Drip**.

Sakura slowed her breathing and let sleep take her for the moment. In her dream, she sat at the Ichiraku Ramen stand with Naruto, enjoying his favourite meal with him as she and the rest of the Konoha Eleven celebrated him and his achieving his dream of becoming Hokage.

Naruto had been smiling and laughing, telling her, and everyone else, that if they believed they could achieve something and tried their best, eventually they would pull through and succeed.

It was a replay of a very real moment and, for the time being, she was at peace in her memories.

When she awoke some short time later from her body's vicious shaking, the coolness of the chamber having seeped into her bones, Sakura sincerely hoped that her desire to keep him safe would be enough.

It had to be, because she didn't know what she could do to stop the battle from ending in his death.

**Drip.**

There was nothing else she could conceivably do.

What could a single kunoichi, battered, bloody and bonded, do to save her friends, her village, and her Hokage?

Her love?

At that very moment, Sakura still didn't quite know.

...

...

...

**Drip**.

* * *

><p><strong>(AN) Sakura's in a dark place =( I don't know what got this idea stuck in my head, but stuck it was and I had to write it. It turned out more dark than I had originally intended, and I'm not entirely satisfied with the writing. I can't decide if Sakura is OOC, mainly because she's such an easily malleable character, and as an older more experienced kunoichi, I'm not really sure how she'd handle this situation. <strong>

**I was initially going to end this story here as an angsty one-shot, wherein you all could just decide how things panned out for her and Naruto, but I figure you want a rescue sequence, amiright? More memories of their romance next chapter to add some light in the darkness. **

**Review please and share with me your thoughts!**

**~dancer-me**


	2. Part II

**(AN) Thanks for all the supportive reviews! I truly wish I could've posted this two weeks sooner, so thank you for your patience in waiting for this update! I don't know why this was so hard to write. Honest to God I do not. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. **

**-Warning – this chapter contains violence, coarse language, and somewhat graphic sexual content. You have been warned O_O**

_**Large bodies of text like this represent memories of past events**_

**Please enjoy and R&R!**

* * *

><p><em>Sakura stepped into their home after Naruto, shaking her head and laughing at his antics.<em>

"_Mou, I'm serious, Naruto!" Sakura tried to tell him as seriously as she could as she turned to close the door behind her, "Next time I get to pick where-" _

_She was cut off as she turned back around by Naruto's lips pressed hard against hers in a hot and passionate kiss. His hands slipped around her waist as he stepped closer to her, angling his mouth to take in more of her, to slip her bottom lip between his teeth and lightly nip. _

_Her brain turned to goo as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, trying to get his chest flush against hers. She leaned into his kiss, opening her mouth to him just as he pulled his lips away and pressed his forehead against hers. _

"_But it's my turn right now," Naruto breathed out with a grin, "so shh and let me have my way."_

_Sakura blinked as she stared into his eyes, her lips still tingling from his kiss._

"_I was talking?"_

_With a laugh, Naruto brought his lips back down onto hers and slipped his tongue into her mouth with practiced ease, licking at her teeth, her palate, her tongue. She fought him for dominance of her mouth even though she knew she would lose. He wanted to win, and she loved it when he did. He knew exactly what to do with his tongue to have her moaning into his mouth. _

_He pressed her up against the closed door, his left hand snaking down her body, his palm running over her curves as it slipped under her skirt. He looped his fingers in the hem of her shorts and gave a quick tug, pulling the spandex down her thighs. _

_He always got like this right before she was about to go out on a mission. He was desperate to have her, and consequently he always left her desperately wanting him during the days that she was gone. He had no idea what he did to her. He had no idea the kind of lingering effect his touches and kisses had on her body. _

_He kissed her hotly before his breath tingled down her throat and he kneeled before her, sliding her shorts the rest of the way down her legs. She stepped out of the garment, already aroused and watching as he flicked the item out of the way. He was looking up at her, and so to tease she ran her hands down her body, cupping her breasts a moment before sliding her hands down her torso to her hips, where she undid the snaps of her skirt and let the cloth fall to the floor, forgotten. _

_She loved the heated look he got in his blue eyes whenever she did that – it would never get old; she'd never get used to it. He trailed kisses up her ankle, her leg, the inside of her thigh. _

_Sakura leaned heavily on the door, letting her head fall back and her eyes slip shut. She felt his breath closing in on her and she knew what was to come. She knew, but still she shook and cried out as his tongue slipped inside her and his hands grabbed hold of her hips, holding her steady so she wouldn't melt onto the floor. _

_He was sinfully masterful at his current task. He'd asked her, one of the first times they had been together, what she liked and where and he had never, ever, forgotten. _

_In fact, as Sakura gasped and writhed against his torturous tongue, he had taken her comments and invented a whole new form of pleasure for her._

**Drip. **

Sakura still didn't know how to stop these nin from attacking Naruto. How to stop them from killing any more of her friends or from capturing her love and former teammate and forcing him to watch her be murdered.

She didn't know, because sitting here, hands tied behind her back around the uncomfortable wooden chair, her blood staining her clothes and her chakra suppressed by the bonds, she felt completely and utterly powerless.

She didn't know, but she _would_ figure it out.

Sakura tried to straighten herself in her chair; tried her best to accommodate the aches in her muscles and all over her body. Her body screamed in protest to her movements, some tentatively healed cuts breaking open once more as she tried to place her feet securely on the ground.

She loathed the defeatist part of her that was telling her she was wasting her time. That had told her, some indeterminable time ago, that Naruto would fail and he, after her, would die.

Gritting her teeth, Sakura leaned back into the chair.

This situation wasn't as completely hopeless as she had previously thought after the sadistic man had told her his plans. In her horror and her distress, she hadn't given Naruto enough credit.

He was headstrong, but he was anything but stupid. He would be prepared as best he could for whatever lay in wait for him. He wouldn't fall so easily.

And Sakura, because of that, refused to give up so easily.

She couldn't sit here, in this dank, putrid cell and wait for her life to fall apart. She couldn't sit and wait to be used as a _tool _in the destruction of Uzumaki Naruto.

**Drip.**

That evil voice in the back of her head told her that while Naruto was the Hokage and a skilled shinobi, even he could be taken by surprise. Even he could lose the upper hand and fall in battle just like every other mortal.

And Sakura knew that. God_dammit_ she _knew_ that.

It was that knowledge that had allowed her to succumb to fear earlier; that had allowed the first vestiges of her giving up, of her breaking, to slip through. It was that knowledge that made her realize what she had to do.

Sakura growled softly as she sat upright in her chair, her feet finally as firmly planted on the damp cell floor as she could manage in her current state. Twisting her wrists, Sakura grimaced as the chakra bonds nipped at her skin.

She would not give her captors what they sought. She would not, _could_ not, allow them any ounce of the sort of ease they exuded, now that they had her trapped and seemingly demoralized.

She would make this as difficult for them as was humanly possible – because she was Haruno Sakura, desperately in love with Uzumaki Naruto, Kage of Konoha, and she intended to be difficult until the very end. She would not break for them.

That dark little voice ghosted through her, thinly veiled and murmuring that, at least this way, her death would be one Naruto would not be able to torture himself over; would be one that would not tarnish his better memories of her.

Because he would see that she never gave up. That knowledge, she hoped, would eventually ease his pain.

She still didn't know what to do to ensure the safety of Naruto and her village. But, by the Hokages, she had an idea.

-o0o-

_Naruto grinned as she came, her fingers digging into his blond hair as she tried not to scream. Sakura had an issue with being a loud lover – it embarrassed her, but her reactions to his touches drove him crazy. _

_Everything about her drove him crazy. _

_As he slid back up her body, licking and kissing her skin as he journeyed, he revelled in her beauty. As he tugged off her shirt, undid her bindings and pulled her close against his chest, he had to remind himself that this dream in his arms was his. _

_She pulled his mouth down to hers and kissed him possessively, a hand sliding down his neck and tugging at the fabric of his shirt._

_He was so unbelievably, uncontrollably, in love with Haruno Sakura. No matter of time would ever dim those feelings; would ever let him fall into lazy acceptance and simple happiness. No, his heart would never stop pounding in his chest when he saw her, when she smiled at him, when he was with her. _

_He slipped off his jacket while she clawed at his shirt. He groaned against her lips as her fingernails scratched at his chest through the cloth. She was impatient. He loved that. It was his fault. He loved that, too. _

"_Naruto..." Her voice was breathy against his ear, her arousal already lacing with the impatience in her voice as he bent his head to kiss her neck. Her soft skin was hot against his lips, her taste a familiar mix of salt and the soap she favoured when she bathed._

_He darted out his tongue to taste her more thoroughly and she gasped into his ear, her busy hands pausing at the hem of his shirt for a fleeting moment before she managed to regain control of her body. _

"Hokage-sama."

Naruto glanced up from his perched position next to Shikamaru and acknowledged Shino. He'd told them, all of his friends, they didn't need to call him that, but for some it was a formality they couldn't shake.

Shino's arm was outstretched as his insects crawled up his hand and under his jacket.

"My kikai have finished scouting the area."

Naruto nodded, his pulse already racing, and gestured at Shino to continue.

"The bodies are northwest of here." Shino informed him, "only three."

Naruto clenched his fists. There was something terribly wrong with saying 'only' in this situation. Only three good men – sons, loved ones, shinobi – had died, as opposed to four. They were people; their life and death meant something to someone. But it couldn't mean anything to him; not now, not yet.

"Konoha shinobi?" Naruto inquired, though he already knew. He knew before Shino offered him a curt nod.

"The others have been moved. Only their blood remains."

"Tch," Shikamaru drew in the dirt with the tip of his kunai, "It's a taunt. They leave the bodies so we know the team was murdered and they survived to take their dead."

"Sick bastards..." Kiba murmured, approaching Naruto and his planning party, "Who ambushes a recon team and leaves the bodies mangled like that to laugh about later?"

"No one's laughing," Ino said gravely, coming up beside Kiba and subconsciously hugging herself.

"I'm not talking about _us_," Kiba defended himself, "I'm talking about them. What was the point in attacking a team that obviously wasn't carrying any vital information?"

Naruto knew the point. It wasn't a case of vital information, but rather of vital cargo. The icy fist that had had his heart in a vice grip since Akane stumbled into Konoha, wounded and dying and declaring her team had been ambushed squeezed him a little tighter.

"_Dead. Dead."_ She'd said, shaking her head at him as she clutched the gash in her chest.

"Who? Akane tell me _who_!" Naruto had begged even as he himself rushed her to the hospital; even as, from his gut feeling, he'd already known who. That enormous chunk of lead pulling his stomach down to the ground and threatening to destroy his ability to breathe the moment he'd seen the bleeding brunette had only worked to make it worse.

Akane had been Sakura's second in command. Second in command of a team that had been bigger than the average recon team for an average job of an average length. And no one, not a single shinobi Naruto had seen Sakura had listed for her team, had been anything close to average.

But somehow, someway, they were dead.

"_Jin,"_ Akane had struggled to speak, blood dripping from her lips and trailing down her chin, _"Isamu..."_

She had coughed, clutching her chest as her legs gave out beneath her at the doors to the hospital. _"A-Ai-Aiko..."_

"Sakura?" Naruto had questioned, his skin clammy and crawling as he waited to hear the pinkette's name, "what about Sakura-chan?"

As he handed off the dying Akane to the responding emergency medical team, Naruto had felt as if the ground beneath his feet had been crumbling and falling apart. If Sakura had survived, Akane wouldn't have shown up in the dire condition she had been in. Sakura would have saved her. Still, he refused to believe it, refused to have his heart so violently torn apart until he heard her name.

But the brunette second in command had said nothing more. She'd turned her fading violet eyes on him and shook her head. She shook it again and again as she was wheeled away, going into shock from blood loss, but dead or alive she had never said.

With no concrete evidence on Sakura's condition, Naruto dared to hope. He had an optimistic soul and always had, and he would continue convincing himself that somehow Sakura had survived, that she'd been captured, until he was proved otherwise.

But while captured was better than dead, it wasn't anywhere close to good.

Naruto clenched his fists as Shikamaru and Shino discussed with Kiba and Ino their theories of how Sakura's team came to meet the fate that it did and what the ulterior motives of possibly taking the kunoichi prisoner could be.

If she was in the hands of the same sadistic bastards who had murdered the rest of her team and gravely injured Akane... Naruto was going to be sick. If they lay even a finger on her... Naruto tried to suppress the anger and fear and rage coiling within him.

"My guess is they'd been made," Shikamaru announced, continuing to scrawl in the dirt with his kunai. "Someone caught wind of the fact that that scroll was going to be retrieved by a Konoha team should it fall into anyone else's hands."

"No one from Konoha knew any details about the mission," Naruto offered, inclined to defend all Konoha shinobi from being suspected of treason. Sakura was well loved – no one would set her and her team up for this fate. He refused to believe that it was even a possibility.

"My money's on the original courier," Kiba said, looking from face to face for signs of agreement. "One guy goes on his own through a potentially dangerous mountain pass to deliver a scroll to another village and then disappears? I say he was in on it somehow."

"So you think he was with the attackers all along?" Ino worried her bottom lip.

"Well, think about it," Kiba argued, becoming more and more invested in his idea, "The dude volunteers to go on his own to deliver a scroll, stages his own death in the mountain, gets to die a Kiri shinobi but really he's setting up the next stage of good-relations sabotage."

"He meets with his buddies, tells them Konoha will be sending a team to pick up the package and then boom, Sakura's team walks right into an ambush."

"It makes sense," Shikamaru said, "that was my going theory."

"The contents of the scroll lend credence to it." Shino agreed.

"What was in the scroll?" Kiba asked curiously after somewhat growling at Shikamaru for having the same idea as him and not sharing it.

Naruto blinked. "Details," he said, "on the truce between Kiri and Konoha."

"So what," Ino complained after a moment of silence wherein the information Naruto had imparted settled in, clearly unhappy with the going theory, "Konoha's team wipes, we deduce it was a set-up, blame the entirety of Kiri instead of that one traitorous asshole and start a war?"

Ino snorted in disgust, but Neji, who had remained a silent observer of the goings on for the entire conversation merely shrugged his shoulders.

"I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case," he said, getting Ino's irritated attention, "Naruto's intelligence is considered questionable at best amongst several villages. A set up like this probably could start a war if Naruto was as dumb and simple minded as he's believed to be."

Naruto bristled, "What the fuck? I'm not stupid!" He wasn't going to start a goddamned war with a village that was trying to form a truce with his own over a hunch! He seethed for a moment before calming down.

"The only war I'm starting is with the sons of bitches who attacked Sakura's team." Naruto ground out through gritted teeth.

"But if all they want to do is trigger a war," Ino thought out loud, "why take a hostage?"

Shikamaru simply shrugged. "Why not?"

"But they took Sakura," Ino implored, distressed, "And she's..." She cast a quick glance in Naruto's direction. There really wasn't anything else that needed to be said. Everyone knew about Naruto and Sakura's relationship. They'd have to be fools and blind not to notice.

"We don't know for sure if they took her. She could be dead somewhere else."

"No!" Naruto shouted, the sound ripped from his throat before he even had time to think. "I won't believe that..."

"Hope is fine, in as much as you are prepared to deal with the fallout should she not have survived." Neji cautioned him calmly from his position leaning against an adjacent tree.

Shikamaru's eyes darted between Neji and Naruto as they stared each other down before he shook his head, muttering, "troublesome..."

"It could be a coincidence that they took her." Kiba volunteered, picking up on the tension. Despite Neji's seemingly cold statements, it was obvious that given their options, everyone wanted to believe that Sakura had been taken prisoner and was still alive.

"More like it was a coincidence that she was on the team," Naruto breathed, tearing his eyes away from Neji and his infuriating calmness, "I know they took her because of me. I know it."

"Knowing that, if we're able to take her back, it would be prudent if you were to remain off of the battle field."

"No fucking way," Naruto growled, throwing a balled fist out beside him, "I'm going in to get her back. If anything were to happen to her..."

He didn't know what he would do. Without Sakura... he couldn't even imagine what his life would be like. Perhaps because his life would end the moment he found out she'd lost hers. He would merely be an empty vessel, going through the motions of living.

"We need to consider," Neji started in again, "that whatever could've happened to her probably has already. It's been _days_."

Naruto knew that. Goddammit he _knew_ that. He just really, really didn't want it to be true. Maybe, if he hoped hard enough, he'd find her breaking her way out of captivity, raging and indignant and perfectly healthy.

Maybe, if he was there on the battlefield as they fought to take her back, she'd come out okay. Ultimately his presence probably wouldn't change anything – he had assembled a team of Konoha's best for this rescue and if they couldn't save her... still, he would 'what if' until the end of time if he hadn't been there himself.

Shikamaru sighed and finished scrawling in the dirt. "If you're on the team, and our theory is correct, we'll be walking right into their trap. We're already crossing the line in trying to retrieve her."

"So what? You'd just leave her to _die_ like those other shinobi in the woods?" Ino shouted. She was barely keeping together, her concern for her best friend slipping out of the ever increasing cracks in her tough girl exterior.

Shikamaru released an exasperated sigh and rubbed the back of his neck.

"I'm saying we can't fuck up," Shikamaru muttered, "troublesome woman." He turned his focus to Naruto, "and if you're there, your safety becomes our top priority."

He didn't like it. Everyone there knew he didn't like it. But he had to accept it, given that he was already being reckless by making himself a part of this mission. He wouldn't have been able to stay back in Konoha, sitting in a tower behind a desk waiting for news about Sakura. There's no way he would've been able to do it without losing his mind.

He had assigned Sakura to this mission. He could have sent her anywhere else but he had chosen this mission because it was short and it was close. He knew she had known that even after he'd stammered out his justification for her assignment. It was because of him that she was likely captured and in God only knew what condition.

Naruto had never really been the praying kind, but he prayed to every single entity in existence, every God, Hokage and ramen chef that she was alive; that she wasn't hurt.

He wouldn't mess this up. He didn't deserve to be Hokage if he couldn't keep his single most important person alive and well.

"_You can't save everyone, Naruto_," Sakura had told him sometime last year when she'd returned home from the hospital, having been unable to save a gravely injured shinobi from death. He'd asked her if she was okay, and she had told him that; that it was something she had come to accept. But despite her strong words, her eyes had been full of sadness at the loss and her shoulders had begun to shake.

"But you tried," Naruto had whispered to her, pulling her into his arms and gently rubbing her back. She'd wrapped her arms around him, holding him tight.

"_I tried_." Sakura had nodded her head against his shoulder, not lifting her face to his or pulling away from his embrace.

Her words, "_You can't save everyone, Naruto_," were running through his head at this moment, but he shook them away. Maybe he couldn't, but she was special. He _would_ try and he _would _save her.

"We won't fuck up," Naruto said now with every ounce of confidence he still possessed.

"Well, now that we've got _that _established," Kiba chirped, as if failure wasn't something he expected to become acquainted with on this mission, "what's the plan?"

Shikamaru directed everyone's attention down to the maps and signs drawn into the dirt in front of them. Naruto worked to stamp down the panic and the lead still floating around inside of his stomach in order to focus and pay attention.

"If they were able to take the bodies and a prisoner, their base has to be somewhere within this radius in order to be practical," Shikamaru used his kunai to draw a circle around an area on the map he had created. "They also had enough shinobi left after the battle to carry the deadweight."

Naruto stiffened, but did nothing more. Sakura was not dead. She _was not _dead. He would feel something deep inside of him shatter and break if she were dead. He just _knew_ it. She had to be alive.

"We have to assume they're skilled, and we have to assume they have bigger numbers than we do." Shikamaru continued, looking up to make sure he had everyone's attention.

"So this is what we're going to do..."

Just hold on, Sakura-chan. Hold on a bit longer – help is on the way.

-o0o-

_She tore off his shirt and he kicked off his pants, bracing his arms against the door on either side of her and bending his neck to capture her lips once more. His tongue was hungry and searching as she pulled it into her mouth and delved her fingers deep into his hair. _

_She didn't know how much more she could take. _

"_Naruto," Sakura panted against his lips as she slid a hand down from his hair to wrap around his shoulders for support. He knew what she wanted, and he ran his left hand down the side of her body to hook under her thigh. _

_She pushed against the wall and wrapped her legs around his waist as Naruto used his hand under her thigh to support her. With a groan that sent shivers through her body, Naruto sunk deep inside her. _

_She held onto him as he thrust into her, as he licked and nipped and sucked his way down her neck._

_She moaned and gasped as he whispered all the sinful things he wanted to do with her; for her, into her ear. _

_She threw her head back against the door as he hit a place inside her that caused her so much pleasure she could have screamed. As it was, a strangled cry slipped through her throat as she panted; as Naruto continued his fast and hard loving._

_It wasn't long before she shattered in his arms, gasping his name and digging her fingers into his shoulders as she came. _

_He soon followed, filling her as his orgasm hit him. He groaned her name, drawn out and deep and he fell forward, holding her tightly to him with one arm as he rested the other and his forehead against the cool door behind her. _

_When their breathing returned to normal, Sakura leaned her head forward and placed a gentle kiss upon his lips. He kissed her back with a sweetness only Naruto could honestly possess after such hot and quick loving. _

_His fingers were in her hair, playing with the long and tangled pink strands as they fell around her shoulders. _

"_I love you," he whispered against her lips, "I always have."_

_Sakura smiled and lifted her head to place a kiss softly on his forehead. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders as he pushed off from the wall, his hands having slipped beneath her thighs to hold her up and against him. He carried her towards their room, all the while smiling up into her eyes. _

"_I love you too," she said to him as he gently lay her down on the soft and cool sheets and fell into bed beside her, "I always will."_

She was as ready as she'd ever be, given the circumstances. All she needed was an audience.

As the minutes ticked by and still no nin dropped by to check on (read: torment) her, the cruel irony of the situation really began to sink in.

**Drip. Drip.**

As the minutes turned to hours, even the inconsistent dripping was failing to irk her even half as much as the absence of her captors.

In all the darkness, throughout all the torture and pain, she had never thought she'd end up sitting around, actually _wanting_ one of the sadistic bastards to pay her a visit. And yet here she was – and as more time passed by at a speed she couldn't determine, she was losing her window of opportunity.

The power and focus she'd pulled out of the dark recesses of her body were slowly fading. She was exhausted, wounded, and malnourished. That evil voice in the back of her head was once again confidently informing her of the futility of her efforts.

_Just give up. Give in. The end results are all the same whether you try to fight it or not. _

Sakura shook her head violently, as if the voice in the back of her head were an actual entity and could see her physical protestations.

"They're not the same," she croaked out quietly, her lips cracked and her throat dry. "They're not the same."

And they weren't. If she let them have their way, she'd die by their hands in front of Naruto. If she carried out her plan, she'd likely die, but Naruto would not have to be her witness. Naruto would not have to come save a kunoichi who was already dead.

Sakura jerked her head towards the large wooden door as the metal hinges screeched at the force with which the door was kicked open.

She heard four footfalls splash in the dirty sheet of water on her cell floor.

**Drip**.

Two men were here. She had hoped for just one – and had prayed it wouldn't be the sadistic shinobi who frequented her cell the most. She could likely pull this off with anyone but him. He... he actually had the power to scare her. To make her feel twelve years old again and powerless.

She cast her glance downward and looked from beneath her eyelashes at the two nin as they approached her. One was rather short and stout – a figure she wouldn't have thought would be beneficial for a shinobi. The other was tall and lanky.

Perhaps two shinobi would do just fine. Sakura suppressed a grin – both for the purpose of concealing her intentions and for protecting her lips from further bleeding – and let her head fall forward and her shoulders sag. Her captors really thought she was finished if they sent these two men into the cell with her.

They thought she had no fight left in her. That the last visit paid to her had effectively destroyed her. Sakura willed the shrinking defeatist voice in the back of her mind to go crawl into a hole and die.

She may not be in the best shape – in fact, she was well on her way to dying – but with the desire to protect Naruto and the anger she had coursing through her veins and the opponents she'd been gifted with, there was a real possibility she could survive longer than she had previously dared to hope.

"Cap'n's right," the little Fat Man said as he elbowed his lanky accomplice in the side, "the little cherry blossom has wilted. Just look at 'er. Look!"

Sakura took in a deep, slow breath, feeling the dirty stares of the two men upon her.

"She has no fight left in her, for certain," Lanky agreed, splashing around to the other side of her chair, "it really is a shame. She had such... pizzazz."

"Such... what the fuck, mate?"

Lanky's feet splashed around some more, a sign that he was fidgeting and perhaps uncomfortable under the critical eye of his partner. "I'm just saying she had something special. Y'know, aside from that hair. I heard she took out four of our unit when we ambushed her team."

"Yeah, I heard that, too," The Fat Man agreed before acquiring an edge in his voice, "but you ain't supposed to be fuckin' impressed by this murderin' princess. Poin' is, we won, she didn't. However..." the fairly long silence drew out and Sakura found herself somewhat interested in what the bloke actually had to say. That is, until he finished his sentence.

"The cap'n sure made her scream pretty."

Now, all she felt was a combination of ill and angry and completely ready to finally shed some blood that wasn't her own. The sadistic man was the captain. It really should have come as no surprise, given his confidence and his previous statements, but still a small amount of extra fear coiled at the base of her spine.

If he caught her again... he probably wouldn't be so kind as to kill her privately and quickly.

Lanky laughed. "That he did. I wonder what he did to get that out of her. She was always so tight lipped."

Fat Man scoffed and Sakura heard the rustle of his clothing as he stretched his arms out towards her as if to say, "what the fuck else do you think he did to her?" Her physical appearance probably said it all – she was bruised and battered and bloody. Her clothing was ripped from the jagged edges of weapons in so many places that she'd count herself lucky if, if she managed to stand, the garments didn't immediately fall right off of her.

Morbidly, she realized that her blood was probably what was gluing the cloth to her skin. She most definitely looked the part of the defeated kunoichi. These fools were far too relaxed in her cell if they were thinking that she could do much more than whimper. In fact, they were probably here because she was no longer considered a threat of any kind.

"Tell you what though, mate," the Fat Man continued after he dropped his arms back down to his side, "I bet ya I can come up with a coupla... more enjoyable ways to make her scream."

Sakura couldn't help the shudder that ripped through her body at the statement. She didn't need the sleazy laughs and quickened breaths of the two nin as tells to let her know what method they were considering.

Even with the miniscule amount of energy she had left, the two vagrants would be lying face down in the putrid water beneath their feet the second they attempted to lay a finger on her. She'd be out that door before they even realized what had happened. Combined with her wrath and her fear for Naruto's safety, taking the two down would be far less challenging than it likely should be, given her condition.

She realized they were staring at her – probably appraising her body – and she shuddered once more for effect. She let a quiet whimper escape her lips. The pain inside of it sounded much more real than she had anticipated.

If she was going to gamble for her safety, she had to do it soon before she found herself too weak and her feigned condition became her real one. As it was, the two were dangerously close –

A loud explosion echoed down the stone hallway, and the two shinobi next to her snapped their heads towards the open door.

"What was that?" Lanky questioned Fat Man.

"Sounds like the party's started," Fat Man responded, a hint of excitement evident in his voice.

"Ah," Lanky acknowledge him and reached a grimy hand out to Sakura's equally grimy shoulder, "I guess it's time then to bring our present to the guest of honour."

Sakura swallowed, hard. She swallowed past the anxiety building up in her chest at the mention of the guest of honour, whom she knew to be Naruto. She could already be too late in her attempt to escape to save him from harm.

She swallowed past the fear that her attempt to free herself would fail, and she would die at the hands of these subpar shinobi. That by the grace of God Naruto would best the missing-nin only to find her, cold in this prison.

She cleared her mind of every fear she had come to know during her time held captive and let her instincts rule her. She was a skilled and practiced kunoichi. Wounded or not, she _could _do this. She _would_ do this.

Because if Naruto was really here... she was _so_ close to him that her heart ached. He really had come for her, which meant he had found out about the massacre of her team and her capture. He was still alive, and there was still a chance that if she could make it into his arms, they could both escape the fate these nin promised them.

It was a chance she was going to fight for with everything she had left. With Naruto already at the base, she'd run out of time on her plan to die prematurely and thwart the torturous plans of killing her in front of him that the nin had devised for Naruto. With Naruto here, death was no longer an option. She _had _to see him. She _had_ to protect him from this trap he'd been lured into with her as bait.

She absolutely _had_ to succeed in freeing herself.

Fat Man went to grab her, and in a split second she threw her weight forward, and with the strength left in her legs, her feet still firmly planted on the ground as she had done hours ago, chucked her body backwards and into the unsuspecting shinobi.

The legs of the chair cracked off with the force of the blow as Sakura connected the man with the stone wall behind her. The wooden legs splinted and snapped and she stumbled forward, jerking her arms up awkwardly behind her as the back of her chair fell to the ground.

Her wrists still bound, her ankles having been freed from the legs of the splintered chair, Sakura ducked and twirled to face the wall as Lanky dove towards her, a vicious dagger in hand. He thrust downward as Sakura shot her arms back behind her and his blade easily severed the chakra bonds that held her. Sakura let her clasped hands continue their journey behind her until they drove up into his stomach.

Not giving Lanky any time to catch his breath, Sakura spun and planted her foot square in his rib cage, sending the man careening through the small prison to bounce off the opposite wall.

Sakura threw her arms up in front of her and skid back through the water as Fat Man yanked a large wooden splinter about the size of a hunting knife out of his chest and swiped at her. Dizzy from blood loss and cramped from sitting strapped into the same position for so long, her reflexes were too slow and she gasped as a sharp pain met her forearm, the jagged wood cutting her skin open.

Fat Man grinned at the sight of her blood, but his fatal error was in thinking that after all the torture she'd been through, one more flesh wound would be enough to deter her from following through with her escape.

Snarling with much of the pent up rage she possessed, Sakura drove her knee up into his stomach, followed quickly by a jab to his oversized head. The man fell forward and with a final blow, Sakura drove her elbow down into the base of his neck and sunk the nin into the dirty water swishing at her feet.

Not wasting any time in checking to see if the two nin were really incapacitated, Sakura wobbled and stumbled towards that big wooden door that had seemed so impassable every time the sadistic man – the captain – had been her visitor.

But not this time.

**Drip**.

Falling through the doorway, Sakura quickly turned around and, blinking through the head rush and the nausea that assaulted her, pulled the door closed and slammed the wooden block down across the entrance. She would not be followed by those men.

Sakura gave herself a moment to lean against the door and take in several deep, ragged breaths as the blood rushed through her veins and her head pounded. Her legs shook with her weight and every inch of her body ached and hurt.

She desperately wanted to heal herself – but she was not yet dying, and she needed what little chakra that had been returned to her when her bonds had been severed to escape. Explosions and shouts shook the base and a stone chunk fell from the ceiling beside her.

The Konoha shinobi were still fighting, Naruto and her friends were still in danger, and she could not afford to rest. Pushing off from the door but keeping a hand braced against the stone wall, Sakura stumbled her way down the hallway, searching for the exit.

She did not look back, and so did not see the streak of crimson blood she left behind on the wooden door.

-o0o-

"_Round two already?" Sakura teased as Naruto braced himself above her, "talk about stamina."_

_He grinned as he trailed kisses across her chest before making his way up to her lips. "Mmm..." he moaned as he tasted her lips once more and she wrapped her arms and legs around him, "Shinobi training has its uses..."_

_Sakura laughed, clearly aware that it wasn't just his extensive training that had him already craving her so soon after having her; that had him ready to make love to her all night long. She definitely wasn't about to argue, though. _

_He loved the sound of her laugh. If he could have his way, he'd just sit with her, all day long, finding ways to make her laugh and smile. _

_Her fingers were on his back, on his chest, in his hair, massaging him with her gentle and tender touches. _

_He bent his neck and nuzzled the side of her head, placing his lips at her ear. _

"_You're special, Sakura-chan," he whispered, smiling against her ear as he heard her breath catch. Despite the fact that he told her, every chance he got, how much he loved her and how much she meant to him, his words still managed to take her breath away. _

_She made his heart feel light – brought butterflies back into his stomach whenever he realized that maybe, just maybe, she loved him as much as he loved her. It seemed impossible, given how much of his heart he had gifted to her and she had stolen away, but at the same time he could find a way to believe it._

_He felt it in her touch, in her kiss, in the way she smiled at him when she caught him looking at her. In the way she laughed when he grabbed her when she tried to slip out of his office in the Tower without a kiss. In the way she said his name when she wanted his attention, in moments of passion, in moments if pique. _

_In the way she was looking at him now as he prepared to make slow love to her all night long until the sun rose and it was time for him to say goodbye until she returned from her mission. _

"_Mmm, special, huh?" Sakura hummed as she brushed her lips softly against his, "special's nice..."_

_She kissed him deeply and he lost himself in the feeling of her lips pressed against his own; of her tongue trailing across his palate. Strangely, he was reminded of his first real kiss shared with her – the day she had stomped up to him on the training grounds, grabbed his face and, for lack of a better word, kissed the shit out of him. _

_His mind had been blown. Every fuse had shorted. He had melted the very moment her lips connected with his. He would still swear, to this very day, that he'd seen flashes of light when she slipped her tongue into his mouth, although Kiba still argued that that was just him preparing to pass out, Hyuuga Hinata style._

_But he wasn't passing out now. He was kissing her with everything he had as his hand tangled in her long pink locks and he ran his other hand up and down the length of her bare leg._

_In a second, she had them flipped over and she lay atop him, smiling down at him despite her lips being occupied by his own._

"_I like sexy, too," she purred as she pulled her lips away from his and he reluctantly let her go. She lifted her hips to straddle him and he groaned as she lowered herself down upon his length. She moaned as he filled her, closing her eyes for a moment before cracking them open and focusing her heated emerald orbs on him. _

_She was molten heat around him and it took all his will power not to grab her hips and immediately take her before he exploded._

_He opened his mouth to speak just as she shifted atop him and he moaned as she tightened around him. _

"_Uhn," he gasped out, his fingers curling around her hips, "me too. Sexy is – sexy is g_ooo_d."_

_She laughed then, so magically and vixen like that he didn't think he could control himself anymore. Lifting her hips, he pulled her off of him up to his tip before pulling her back down and filling her completely once more. _

_She cried out as he hit that spot inside of her that always had her panting in his arms. After spending several months after their relationship got serious finding unique ways and places to jump each other, he knew her body – he carried that sensual map in his head wherever he went. _

_She ran her hands all over her body, letting her head fall back as he thrust into her before settling on leaning forward, bracing her arms on his shoulders. _

"_Naruto – oh God, Naruto..." Her breathy pants were fuel for his desire and he groaned as he leaned forward and forcefully captured her lips in his. She moaned into his mouth as he loved her body, as their sweat slicked bodies were driven wild with sensation. _

He_ was making her pant. _He _was making her cry out. _He_ was making her body shake in his arms as her orgasm fast approached. The idea alone would be enough to make him hard. The reality of it was driving him mad as he tried to hold out on coming until he brought her to release. _

"_Fuck, Sakura," he groaned as she pressed herself against his chest and ground her hips against him, "I can never get enough of you."_

"_You – ah, never have to, Naruto," she moaned into his ear. _

_And wasn't that a thought to bring a man to his knees. This woman – this gorgeous, kind, dangerous woman was his. He could make love to her for many times to come because she wanted _him_. _

_He brought his gaze to her lips when she mewled softly as he buried himself deep inside of her. She was biting her bottom lip and her eyes were squeezed shut. _

_As if she could sense that she'd captured his attention, her eyes snapped open, deep and clouded with passion. _

"_I know what you're, mhm, trying to do, Naruto," she gasped as he ran his hand up her back and back down her stomach, "but I – ah, refuse to come until you do." _

"_No way, Sakura-chan," he responded, only to cry out as she lowered her head and licked up the side of his neck, nibbling at the base of his ear. Fuck it all, she _knew_ how to drive him mad. He was _so_ close, she had to know that; anymore of that and she _was_ going to make him break his resolve and come. _

_Unless... Naruto snaked his hand down her tummy and slipped his fingers between her folds. She moaned as he found what he was looking for and rolled the nub around between his fingers as he thrust into her._

_Her legs clamped around him and she delved her tongue into his ear and he was lost, releasing into her heat as he called out her name and held her tightly. She was panting madly, shaking in his arms as her orgasm tore through her. _

_As the passion subsided, they lay limp together in bed, her soft body resting atop his. His breathing having returned to normal, Naruto wrapped his arms around the sated beauty in his bed. _

"_Mmm..." he hummed, "sexy is definitely good. Where did sexy come from?"_

_In a second, she harrumphed, pushing herself up on a forearm and smacking his arm with her free hand. _

"_Naruto!"_

_Laughing, Naruto caught her hand as she went to smack him again and brought it to his lips. Turning her palm upward, he placed gentle kisses down her wrist before lifting his soft blue eyes to look at her beautiful face. _

_She was frowning playfully, trying to keep a smile from breaking through and ruining the facade. _

"_I always think you're sexy, Sakura-chan," Naruto told her earnestly, never breaking eye contact, "you're sexy when you sit up in bed pouring over that huge medical textbook-"_

"_Naruto..." Sakura's voice carried a warning, indicating that while she appreciated the compliment, she thought he was pushing it a little with that last statement. But Naruto wouldn't have it. Shaking his head, he gave her wrist a small tug and pulled her back down and into his arms. _

"_I'm serious," he said, "there's something about you and your job and textbooks that just turns me on," he grinned, "which is probably why I don't visit you much at the hospital. I'd probably see you with a clipboard and jump you."_

_Sakura looked thoughtful for a moment before a thoroughly amused laugh escaped from her lips. _

"_You _did_ jump me in the hospital already."_

"_H_eeee_h," Naruto grinned sheepishly. "See? I just can't stay away from you."_

"_Bad Hokage-sama," Sakura teased, kissing the tip of his nose, "you can't follow me on missions."_

"_Yeah, yeah, I know..." he said, even though she and he both knew that he wanted to. He loved being Hokage, it was his dream come true, but he missed being on her team – fighting alongside her and being there to protect her, even though she'd grown into such a powerful and formidable kunoichi that his aid was probably the last thing she required. _

_She seemed to pick up on his thought process and she gave him a sweet reassuring smile. "Don't worry, Naruto," she said, "I'll be careful, as always."_

_She didn't say anything more definite than that, like "I promise I'll return" because in their line of work, such promises weren't ones they were able to make. Any number of things could go wrong on a mission. Bad intel, bad decisions, bad people. The best one could do was stay alert and watch their and their teammates' backs. _

_He never liked considering what it would be like if he sent her on a mission that she didn't come back from. As such, he actively avoided any thoughts of that kind, but being a somewhat superstitious man, he always had to wish her luck and safety before she left. _

"_Take care of yourself," he whispered, pulling her close and tugging the bed sheet up around them, "and come back to me."_

"_I'll do my best, Naruto," Sakura answered, resting her head on his shoulder and placing a delicate hand, so small and yet so powerful, on his chest above his heart, "I love you."_

Naruto was doing his best not to freak out.

With Shikamaru's strategic assistance and intelligence gathered by Shino and Kiba with the help of Akamaru, Naruto's team comprised of the Konoha Eleven and several other trustworthy nin had made it into the base of Sakura's presumed captors with little trouble.

It had been Shikamaru's idea to enter with a bang, which was something Naruto was definitely on board with. Big entrances – his specialty. The idea was that the commotion would draw out the nin, hopefully have them off their game given the hour and the force of the attack, and, venturing into wishful thinking territory, result in Sakura's captors leaving her alone wherever she was held and open for a small team of Konoha shinobi to retrieve.

The battle was still in high gear, but Naruto was getting antsy. These nin were _good _and came in no small number. They were dangerous and challenging opponents, and Naruto couldn't afford to let his mind wander, but wander it did as he considered what Sakura's condition might be, given the skills of her captors.

A unit of three had broken off during the initial pandemonium and slipped into the base in order to search out Sakura. It was a team Naruto desperately wanted to be on, but reluctantly he understood why he couldn't be a part of it.

His presence was essentially the main feature of this battle as he was capturing most of the attention. With all these nin so focused on taking him down, he didn't belong on a covert strike team. Shikamaru insisted, and Naruto agreed, that if they were going to walk right into a trap, they might as well spin it to their own advantage and be the distraction.

So far the battle was progressing well and the Konoha shinobi still held the upper hand, but every time Naruto received a reprieve from being assaulted and scanned the area, he picked up no sign of Sakura's chakra signature and caught no glimpses of her vibrant pink hair. He still had no word from the recon team regarding their progress in their search for her.

The absence of those things was disconcerting. Was she even here at all? Or... a cold chill trickled through his veins as he considered the possibility that Sakura was...

Spinning around, Naruto blasted an oncoming shinobi with a barrage of shuriken and side-stepped a kunai, allowing the tiny weapon to whiz right by him.

Sakura was not dead.

Sakura was not dead.

Sakura was – standing on the other side of the courtyard, bracing her palm against the trunk of a tree, staring back at him.

Naruto felt as if he had caught sight of a ghost and had run into a brick wall, head first. Every part of his body seemed to lose its ability to function and he stood still where he was, his feet planted in the dirt. His legs shook as he forced himself not to fall to his knees as sudden weakness coursed through him.

He was going to be sick. The relief he'd felt at catching a glimpse of pink hair in his peripheral vision as he spun evaporated almost as soon as it formed.

She looked as if she could already be dead.

Her pink hair was matted in blood – her blood. Her face was dirty and her cheeks were bruised, as if she had been struck several times by a blunt object or a heavy handed assailant. There were trails of blood down her forehead and her cheeks, some continuing on to run down her neck.

If the knowledge that she had sustained such injuries to her head wasn't enough to bring him to his knees, then the rest of her body... a strangled cry, so painful and so quiet escaped his throat.

She was covered in her blood. He could see places in her clothing that had been sliced – he could see the gashes on her arms, legs, and abdomen. He could see the weakness in her body. He could see the blood still dripping down one of her arms.

The bastards. The fucking bastards had tortured her. All those wounds... they weren't a week old; they weren't the remnants of the ambush. They were fairly new and these nin were going to _die_. He was going to _destroy _them because fuck. Just _fuck_. If they wanted her as bait for him, they had no need to torture her. They didn't have to lay a fucking hand on her. His Sakura-chan looked as if... as if... he could barely breathe past the lump in his throat.

His Sakura-chan looked as if she had been damaged in every place that could sustain injury without killing her. And he knew, goddamn he hated that he _knew_ that that had been the intention.

If it weren't for the intensity of her gaze as she looked back at him, Naruto would have already snapped and murdered each and every one of the nin in this base. But her eyes... they were so focused on him that he took a tentative step towards her, staring back, as the battle raged on around them.

It was hard to read the look upon her face. She looked... relieved, worried, elated and concerned. She had been worried about _him_. He could see it in the way her shoulders that had previously been pushed back slumped forward slightly, now that she'd seen him. She'd been worried that her captors had succeeded in their trap.

But they hadn't, she was seeing that now, and he was seeing that they hadn't succeeded in holding her either. They were successful only in torturing her within an inch of her life. Naruto was going to have nightmares every night for the rest of his.

"_I'm okay," _ she mouthed to him from across the yards of dirt and grass and rock that separated them. He assumed 'okay' meant alive, because she looked just about as far from okay as any living person could be. As if on cue, a pained look washed across her face and she slumped sideways into the tree beside her.

Naruto jerked forward, preparing to run to her aid when a shinobi suddenly appeared behind her.

And just like that, the look of pain that marred her face warped into one of fear. It was an expression to chill the blood that flowed through him. Fear on Sakura's face was an expression he hadn't seen for many, many years. And it was enough to scare him shitless for both her and himself.

That man – that man behind her was not a Konoha shinobi. In fact, he was willing to bet just about anything that he was the man who had inflicted so much harm upon Sakura's body. The broad, dark figure placed an overly familiar hand on her shoulder and bent his head down to be level with her ear.

There was no way Naruto could make it to Sakura on time. His heart stopped beating in his chest.

Sakura looked up into Naruto's eyes. She knew he wouldn't make it.

The missing-nin whispered something in her ear.

And then he plunged a kunai through her chest as he grinned directly at Naruto.

-o0o-

As far as painful experiences went, this was by far the worst she had ever had. Mentally, physically, and emotionally.

She had been so _close_. So close to escaping this place. So close to protecting Naruto from the torture that coming to save her promised for him.

When she'd stumbled outside and into the light, she'd initially been disoriented by the battle unfolding around her. After getting her bearings and confirming that the Konoha shinobi were on the offensive and surviving, Sakura frantically searched around for a shock of blond hair.

When she'd seen him, alive and fighting, the knot in her stomach had begun to loosen. In fact, she'd even say that relief had coursed through her at the sight of him. She was going to be okay. Everything was going to be okay.

But when he'd finally noticed her, she'd felt that knot tighten once again inside of her at the look of sheer anguish that had marred his features. She realized that she probably looked just as bad as she felt, if not worse. Her heart broke a little inside when she watched his fall apart as his eyes scanned her from across the clearing and took in her injuries. She hadn't wanted him to have to see her like this.

"I'm okay," she'd croaked out silently, hoping he would read her lips and know that she wasn't about to die right in front him. She had seen in his eyes and his stance that he didn't believe her, even though he desperately wanted to. Sakura had made to move forward, to get to him, but he was so close and yet so far away as she suddenly became aware of the searing pain of her injuries.

The small taste of freedom she'd experienced upon seeing him had driven away the last remnants of the power she'd summoned within her in order to ignore the pain. Biting back a cry, Sakura fell sideways into the tree next to her that she'd been using to support her, ramming her shoulder into the bark.

Naruto jerked forward, his eyes wide with worry as she looked back at him through pain clouded eyes.

No. She refused to let her injuries take her, now that she was so close to Naruto – now that he was looking at her.

No. Life could not be that cruel. If she could just get her hands up...

But life really could be that cruel, it seemed. In a second, Sakura sensed a nauseatingly familiar chakra signature materialize behind her. She couldn't control the ice cold fear that gripped her as the sadistic nin who had tortured her, as the captain of this group of bloodthirsty missing-nin, clamped a firm hand down on her shoulder, next to her neck.

He pulled her up and back, and her eyes widened even more as she felt the sharp tip of a blade press just beneath her shoulder blade. He was letting her know what was to come, because there was absolutely nothing she or Naruto could do to stop it.

Naruto was already on his way to her, his eyes jumping between her and the shinobi holding her, his extreme concern very evident on his face. But she and he both knew no matter how fast he ran, no matter how hard he pushed, that he wouldn't make it in time.

She looked into his eyes as he looked into hers and she tried to communicate with him. Tried to tell him that she would survive what he was about to witness. Tried to beg him with every fibre of her being not to shatter apart when he watched this shinobi torture her one last time.

"I'm going to enjoy this, cherry blossom," the captain whispered into her ear, his beard scratching her raw skin, "it's been fun."

And with that, he plunged his razor sharp blade through her chest and she couldn't hold back the scream of pain that tore through her.

He shoved her forward, off of his now bloody blade and she collapsed to her knees as her blood poured out of the new hole in her chest. She blinked through the fog of pain in order to look up at Naruto as he ran to her, his eyes wild and pained and dear God, this was exactly the scene she hadn't wanted him to witness.

In her attempt to escape on her own, she'd brought this scene right to him and her heart, pounding weakly in her chest hurt so much worse for it – for the light that was slowly fading from Naruto as her life slipped away from her. She had failed to protect Naruto from this.

_No. _No no.

The captain was laughing as she shivered through her pain and the cold chill that was washing through her. Laughing as Naruto continued to run for her and consequently into the next stage of the captain's set-up.

_No_. No no.

Shaking and shocky, Sakura lifted her hands and placed her fingers together. She forced her eyes to remain focused on Naruto as she laboured through her jutsu and hoped, desperately hoped, that Naruto would run right past her when she eventually collapsed onto the ground.

Prayed that he would see what she was doing and go on the offensive, taking down the sadistic nin who took pleasure in her pain instead of dropping down beside her.

Sakura finished her jutsu as Naruto came within several feet of her and felt her chakra envelop her body before an intense wave of exhaustion struck her.

No longer able to stay focused on Naruto, she let her eyes slip shut as she fell forward into the grass.

-o0o-

Naruto knew that jutsu. He'd never seen Sakura use it, but he'd seen those same hand signs used in that same sequence by Tsunade.

He knew what that glow emanating from the small purple rhombus on her forehead, previously hidden by her blood, meant.

He knew it, and he thanked every higher power he could come up with for Sakura having the ability to perform that jutsu. But still he could not convince a part of himself that, when her eyes closed and she fell forward, her eyes would ever open again.

He knew how close to death she'd have to be before she'd ever resort to using that jutsu. It had its repercussions, and it wasn't something anyone would take lightly. He was mad, so _mad_ at these nin for torturing her and, by extension, torturing him.

He couldn't get past the part of himself that was still panicking and already dying inside at the idea of losing her. At the incredibly recent memory of that kunai plunging through her chest right before his eyes as he stood too far away, completely unable to help her.

He couldn't get past it, but he _would_ because Sakura was his world and that beast, standing next to that tree, had tried to end it right before his eyes. Had _laughed_ as he tried to kill the most amazing woman in the whole world.

And for that, Naruto was not fucking happy.

Roaring and fuelled by the anger and rage he felt over the pain caused to the love of his life, Naruto ran past Sakura's unconscious form and charged the nin.

The man was clearly not expecting Naruto to disregard Sakura's body – _fuck_, it hurt his chest like a million kunai being plunged into his heart when he thought of her that way – and go for revenge first.

He was not expecting it, but by the smirk that appeared on his face when he realized Naruto's intent, Naruto was fairly certain that he was looking forward to watching him try.

Naruto threw down his hand and growled as a large spinning blue ball of chakra formed in his palm.

The nin bent his knees and jumped back, preparing to dodge Naruto's full frontal attack. But once his feet hit the ground several yards away, his body didn't budge, and it still didn't budge and as Naruto got closer, the shinobi's eyes widened as realization struck him.

Shikamaru had the bastard pinned in place by his shadow, unable to run or hide from his imminent death. Naruto would feel no sorrow for ridding the world of this man in the same manner the missing-nin had tortured Sakura – when he was powerless and unable to move, unable to escape his fate.

"RASENGAN!" Naruto shouted as he thrust the blue ball into the shinobi's chest with all the force of a man who had come too close to losing the most precious thing in the world to him.

Before the dust in the crater even managed to settle, Naruto ran back to that tree and skid to his knees on the ground beside Sakura. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her off the ground and onto his lap.

"Sakura-chan!" he called out to her, his voice cracking with his concern as her eyes remained closed and her head fell back to rest on his arm as he held her.

"Sakura-chan," he said her name again as his hand tentatively and carefully roamed her body. He brushed his fingers over the damp blotch of blood on her chest where the kunai had punctured her. Fearfully, he pulled aside her shirt to look at where the gash should be.

Underneath all the blood, there was only smooth skin. Naruto's shoulders shook and his head fell forward to rest against hers as relief washed through him and he battled the hot and cold sensation that warned him that he was going to pass out.

Her jutsu had worked. She was alive. She was going to wake up and smile at him again. He was going to get another chance to hear her laugh. He was going to get another chance to tell her how much he loved her. He was going to get another chance to hold her and never let her go until she threatened to break every bone in his body.

He couldn't fight the tears that began to slip out of his eyes and run down his cheeks. Tears of sadness were relatively controllable, but relief? Relief was a bitch – there was no way he'd ever manage to stop them now that they'd started and so he just cried as he shook and held her warming body in his arms.

The rest of his Konoha team approached him warily, having stayed behind to make sure the nin had not survived Naruto's blow and all the other shinobi had been taken care of. Now they looked from Naruto to the limp kunoichi in his arms and their faces reflected various degrees of sadness and remorse.

Ino gasped and clapped her hands over her mouth, stumbling back as she noted the tears rolling down his cheeks.

Confused, he stared back up at Ino, blinking away the moisture. Why was she so horrified by his show of relief?

And then he realized that everyone thought he was crying for a different reason. They thought he was crying because the beauty in his arms, the beloved medic-nin and friend that they'd all grown up with and loved, was dead.

With all the blood still covering her body, she definitely looked the part.

"She's alive," Naruto murmured quietly as he struggled to get his voice back into working order, "she's alive."

"Naruto..." Ino whispered, looking down at Sakura's bloody form, "Sakura...she..." it was clear to him that Ino feared he was going into hysterics, unwilling to accept Sakura's death. He couldn't blame her – Sakura looked to the world as if she was dead. And she would be, were it not for Tsunade's jutsu.

He was going to experience many sleepless nights in his future when he found himself running what-if's through his mind. What if she hadn't known that jutsu, what if she'd died before she could finish forming it, what if, what if. But he shook his head, because there was no need to what if now. There was no need to further torture his soul anymore than it already had been when he saw Sakura's state and the damage that had been done to her.

Because she was alive.

"She used the Genesis of Rebirth technique," Naruto told Ino, told them all, "she had chakra stored in reserves so she could use it..."

"oh, my God," Ino shouted as she delved her fingers into her bright blond hair. She smiled then and a relieved laugh escaped her – several others followed suit, while others chose to flop down onto the grass and handle their relief privately and quietly in their own way.

"Naruto..." Naruto's head snapped down to look at Sakura. Her eyes were slightly open, her skin was pale and her voice was so quiet he could barely hear her. And yet she was the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen, and hearing her voice at this moment was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

"I'm here, Sakura-chan," Naruto told her, pulling her closer to his chest and placing his forehead against hers, "I've got you. You're safe now."

"Did you..." her voice cracked, her throat obviously dry and sore, "did you kill him?"

"Yes, I did." Naruto answered immediately, without any sign of remorse for the sadistic bastard in his voice. If he could, he'd kill the nin again and it still wouldn't make up for what he'd done to Sakura.

"Good," her eyes slid shut a moment before she opened them up again to look into his own, "I'm glad... I'm glad you're okay. I was so scared..."

_She_ was scared? God, between the two of them there wasn't enough scared left for the rest of the world to ever fear anything ever again.

"I was scared too," Naruto whispered, a knot forming again in his throat, "I was so scared that I had lost you. God, Sakura-chan, I'm so sorry this happened. It was my fault they took you. If it weren't for me –"

"Stop," she demanded, the strength in her voice making him do just that. She shook her head and struggled to sit up, but her body was still too weak from her jutsu and the blood loss. "If it weren't for you, I'd be dead," she told him with a confidence that chilled his bones, "when they had me prisoner and they hurt me and they left me alone in that cell," her eyes glazed over as if she were back in that cell again in her mind, and she shook her head, trying to banish the memory, "I could have broken. I should have. But I escaped to you."

She gave him a small smile and lifted her hand to touch his cheek, "I thought about you. Memories of you captivated me and separated me from the pain so I could survive."

Fuck, he was crying again, but so was she.

"I needed to get out of there so I could see you again," she whispered, her voice thick with emotion, "so don't tell me it's because of what we have that this happened – don't tell me we shouldn't be together."

Her emerald eyes looked so sad in that moment. "Because I don't think I could handle it."

"Never," Naruto heard himself whispering firmly, "I'll never tell you that. I can't live without you, Sakura."

He knew that now more than ever.

"Thank you," she told him softly as he scooped her up into his arms and stood, "for saving me."

Naruto shook his head, "you saved me when you saved yourself."

He'd argue that he hadn't done anything for her at all other than get her and her team into trouble, but he knew already that that wasn't something she wanted to hear. And it wasn't something he wanted to acknowledge. Instead, he found the most peace he could in knowing that her memories of their time together had helped her stay strong until he could be strong for her.

She smiled into his shoulder as she rested her head against him, fatigue creeping up on her, "home," she whispered, "let's go home."

Naruto turned to look back at his team, his friends, and inclined his head towards Sakura and then in the direction of Konoha. They were going to go home.

Naruto was going to spend the next long while holding Sakura close, convincing himself that she was still alive. He didn't know how either of them would manage to recover from this, but he knew they'd find a way so long as they were together.

Because as long as he had her, he could survive anything.

* * *

><p><strong>(AN) Egads, 13,000 words and a lemon split up in the middle of an angsty story and battle scene. Some may consider it out of place, but it's something that I really wanted to do. I felt it juxtaposed well with the turmoil they were both experiencing in the present. I (hoped to) display the deep love – passionate, affectionate, and sincere – that they held for each other.<strong>

**After finishing this, I realized that I really like my Naruto and Sakura in this, and I like their romance pre-capture. I'm contemplating writing a multi-chaptered prequel that will cover how they got together, Naruto's quest for Hokage, their relationship after they got together, etc. and the situations that I alluded to in the flashbacks – minus any scenes specifically related to the advancement of this story. Let me know if you're interested in reading that =) **

**Thanks for reading! I really appreciate the interest and once again, thanks for the patience in waiting for this update! I hope this was worth the wait. And yes, I know I kind of screwed the pooch on the whole angst of this story by giving it a happy-ish ending – up until the 10,000****th**** word I was still considering killing her but...when I thought about Naruto... I just couldn't do it. I've got this issue with getting attached to people. **

**Please drop me a line and let me know what you thought =) As always, reviews make for a happy dancer-me!**

**~dancer-me**


End file.
